549: Improve Your Attention Span with Dr. Gloria Mark
Age Less / Live More
Lucas Rockwood
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 January 2023
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When people brag about their 80-hour work weeks, I have to wonder, are they really working for 80 hours? Or are they starting, browsing social media, and then stopping and starting eight times in a row like me? While I often “work” for 10 or even 12 hours in a day, only a novelist would label what I’m actually doing as focused work.
Many of us struggle with attention so profoundly that our only solution is to buffer the day with massive blocks of non-productive cloud-gazing time, so that 2-3 hours of focus will collectively add up by default by the time the day is over. Sound familiar? My guest on this week's podcast studies attention and productivity.
Listen and learn:
- How a 20-minute walk encourages divergent thinking and can refresh your attention span
- How multitasking can increase your blood pressure and stress response
- How to practice discernment and mindfulness with social media
- The value of superimposing meta-awareness to tasks for greater attention
Links
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Gloria Mark is a professor at UC Irvine. She has spent over two decades studying multitasking, interruptions, productivity and mood with the rise in digital technology. Her work has been published extensively and her new book is called Attention Span.
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- Visit www.yogabody.com
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Many of my early memories of school, especially elementary school, were struggling with two things. |
| 0:08.3 | One was boredom, and the second one was just the inability to focus on one thing for more than |
| 0:13.5 | a couple of minutes. And the most pronounced demonstration of this was reading when I sat down |
| 0:18.5 | to read. And even today, if I sit down and try to read continuously for more than a few minutes, |
| 0:24.8 | my mind wanders, and I get stir crazy, and it's very, very difficult for me to do. Now, |
| 0:30.8 | I'm middle-aged guy. At this point, I figured out little hacks and audiobooks and ways to make |
| 0:34.7 | notes and writing in the margins, and all kinds of different techniques I use to hold my own attention, |
| 0:39.3 | but it's still something that I struggle with is still something that I'm sure you struggle with. |
| 0:43.6 | If I work eight or ten or even a 12-hour day, maybe there's an hour and a half of productive work |
| 0:49.3 | in there. So this is something I'm always trying to revisit and always trying to improve. |
| 0:53.8 | And with the introduction of social media news feeds and 24-7 crisis news network being blasted |
| 0:59.7 | at all of us all the time, it's difficult. It's really, really difficult to hold attention |
| 1:04.8 | with work and just as difficult to hold attention with a person who's sitting across from you |
| 1:09.2 | at the dinner table. On this week's podcast, you'll meet a PhD researcher and author whose work |
| 1:14.7 | focuses specifically on attention span. If you're new here, it's the Lucas Rockwood show. I'm a |
| 1:20.0 | yoga teacher. I'm a trainer. I'm a serial entrepreneur. Father of three. |
| 1:23.8 | Firstly, I am a student. I like to learn things. I use this podcast as a way to |
| 1:27.8 | find people. Writing, researching, yoga teachers, medical doctors, all of the above. I bring |
| 1:32.7 | them here on the show so we can get more information and live more inspired lives. To support the show, |
| 1:38.6 | scroll down in whatever app you're listening on and give a rating and review. It just helps more |
| 1:42.8 | people to find the show. I have a weekly email newsletter that goes out. It's at yogabody.com forward |
| 1:48.5 | slash sign me up. I have a YouTube channel. If you search yoga body, all one word, I publish about |
... |
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